I have stolen the dandelions scattered their seeds across
fields of tulips and tamarind I have felt desire crack
my lips apart under the weight of its slippery skin
What fresh figs, what sunny flowers What breaking hearts
rot beneath the hills beneath sticky sidewalk pavements
We grow older but not duller hovering translucent over
calendar time
Sara Whittemore is a poet living in Houston, Texas. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the Jack Kerouac School at Naropa. Her work has recently appeared in Interim Magazine, Juniper Press and Tiny Spoon, and others. In addition to being a poet she is an artist, alien and cat person. You can find her on instagram @sarafromsaturn.
drowning those on the surface underneath it’s downpour
you are very much as the spring this year
we can only pray hope is real practice deep breaths plan in positive accord
as in what may grow
closer
perhaps the squirrels will not eat the strawberries but better to put a barrier between them and the fruit
I’m sure the weeds and wild grass will stay a few weeks more green before the summer sizzle
maybe we may take advantage of both the growing tumble and the withering
to pull from the rain and the land the best we can
to add to the home we share within us
set the table prepare the meal and may neither one of us be cut
the cosmic within and without
BY TED VACA
YOU MIGHT WANT
to think deeply
about where you
come from
To Think Deeply About Where You Come From
TO
THINK DEEPLY
ABOUT WHERE
YOU COME
FROM
to think
deeply
about
to open the eternal
gold-fringe lined
burgundy curtain
on the stage manager's signal
let the show begin
step upon the stage
stomach in turmoil
mind electric
your eyes
wide wild
and excited
to accept what is
within
is without
to accept what is
without is within
the universe s
s p
l i
a r
out and in
unfolds engulfs
consistently for a manufactured
lineage of time
the universe
doesn’t care about
TIME
time manmade time the cursor
from birth to death and how much
can you accomplish
time the accomplishment
measure of worth and meaning
time the killer the waste of
the sought after for proof of
deeds and diplomas
the microscopic
is C O S M I C
the cosmic is
microscopic
the embryo in their sack
utero evolving galaxies
spinning and star beings
born in a chemical-chance
at becoming only to be seen
in awe by the dark matter
that surrounds
Incomprehensible!
our eternal selfs
witnessed
mirrored not above
not below
but all around
breaking the novelty of direction
the compass explodes and the earthly mind
is set free of dimensions then intuned with the way
then again becoming unknown
as a dream
separated
from the expansion
we’ve not far to go
to reach & realize
Ted Vaca, Denver poet father lover crime fighter / semi holy somewhat sweet can be bitter / published here and there / Founder of The Mercury Cafe poetry slam / Coach of the 2006 Championship Denver Slam Team / Member of 1995 Championship slam team from Asheville NC / Intergalactic Provocateur
Outside the men’s restroom at Union Station trench coats heaped next to skis.
Inside the pile I am a carpet beetle minding the pockets.
Outside the pile I am the custodian with a side gig selling the larvae to the chocolate-covered- insect food truck, The Smooth Thorax.
Brian Dickson (he/him/his): When not teaching at the Community College of Denver, Brian avoids driving as much as possible to traipse around the front range region by foot, bike, bus or train with kids in tow. Somehow he also serves as an editor for New Feathers Anthology as well.
Maybe I should stop writing about glitter— but sometimes I wonder
if it’s the only proof still clinging to what’s left of us. Do you miss
the sparkle of my eye shadow? Golden branded butterfly kisses fluttered
onto your gilded cheeks. I guess I just like shiny things that stay. Like a shimmery
permanence, or a luster memento of everything I’ve loved enough to touch.
Another Period Poem
Fucking someone should be easy, but I’m on my period on a first date, and I want
to negotiate a scene— but not that one from The Shining. So anyway, a man walks into a bar
and I’m bleeding. He says I’m happy you decided to meet, and my smile lacks sparkle because I’m just here
for the ride, and one of us knows that’s not going to happen. I order something fruity with a tiny
umbrella. My cherry red lipstick ghosts into the soft red bar-light glow. I’m on his lap when I say we’re not
having sex. He puts his hands up— a surrender, says I’d just like to kiss you, and we do until I’m kissing
him with my eyes open: bored and waiting for the punchline. An older man walks into a bar, and I’m still bleeding.
He says I don’t drink but looks thirsty. I savor the thought of being a novelty, but he looks everywhere but me
and his fingers fidget, never reach for mine. He walks me home and doesn’t invite himself in.
A woman walks into a coffee shop, it’s a week and a half later and I’m still bleeding. I’m cursing the bloated
baggage of the breakup that brought this all on. She says I’d like to kiss you, and we do and she leaves. I want to feel
something, will myself to exchange numbness for lust. I’m empty and aching to be filled by something like soft
hands. The boy made of sand let himself be swallowed by a gentler sea. I wish
instead of blood I could bury him under the rough sheets of some unknown
bed. I don’t want to write another poem about this boy or my period,
but I guess I’ll opt for the latter because it’s the one that always comes back.
Tyler Hurula (she/her) is a poet born and raised in Denver, Colorado. She is queer, polyamorous, and lives with her wife and two cats. Author of Love Me Louder (Querencia Press). Her poems have been published previously in Anti-Heroin Chic, Aurum Journal, Quail Bell Magazine, Gnashing Teeth Publishing, and more. She values connection, authenticity, and vulnerability, and tries to encompass these values in her writing as well as everyday life.
Trae sang Frank Sinatra to my left as the doctor removed a drain from my right.
I wasn’t ready to look down yet.
Later, I apologized for the blood I leaked onto the paper, covering my doctor’s white leather chair.
I’m sorry for my mess, I said, an apology with a footnote, of which the dissertation is still being written.
With compression off for the first time in eight days, I assemble as much oxygen as I can. I inhale
the width of North America and exhale four decades in this body.
My eyes unclench; they are not fists.
The doctor praises my body, her work.
You are an artist, Trae says to her.
Slowly, I drop my head.
My chest is my favorite book pulled open to the best part.
It is flat, bruised. Nipples like squashed berries on the sidewalk, sort of charred and uncertain.
I have survived this pain. And my new chest is
beginning
a narrative therapy exhibition
part one.
Debra, my therapist, writes me a letter to prove medical necessity for bilateral mastectomy. I become a card catalogue of mental distress, two disorders and a dysphoria. The letter calls me consistently depressive; suddenly, I feel so seen. Why must we demonstrate our unwellness for health insurance assistance when no man has to take a photograph of his flaccid penis in order to qualify for erection renewal.
part two.
Strobe light images of sensations and feelings. My feminist hides, squinting every letter into a scared pill bug. My body is a neighbor I wave hello to, with preference to keep our conversations no longer than a nod. We pretend we are strangers; it is better this way. There was a time before I flinched. Before I looked at men and thought about their penises as bullet holes left in women’s bodies. Before what I wore became a billboard for who I was, how I identified, rather than just cotton and comfort. Before my dentist declared all the reasons my teeth were complicated derelicts: drugs, lack of flossing, all those panic attacks and New Jersey water. Before my body had scars named after the men, named after the meds, named after me. Before that HPV diagnosis. Before that colposcopy where my girlfriend and I watched my cervix projected on a screen as though it were the star of a new sitcom about genital warts and bad decisions. Before my body became a crime scene or the DSM-5 or a chalk outline of a former life or a tear-soaked handkerchief or a protest poem or a ghost or a misunderstanding
or a question mark.
footnote
It comes back. It threads itself into the thin skin of my eyelids, jackhammers itself against my chest, creeps into the wax in my ears. It has been cut out, but it comes back. It has been drowned out with liquor and hops, but it swims to shore. It has been numbed with powders, chemicals, pickpocketed medicine cabinets; it keeps waking back up. It. It is genetic. It is unruly, unpredictable. It does not care you do yoga now or pretend to meditate. It has no interest in what you call yourself now, how you (try to) see yourself now. It is not going away. It. It stops you from getting jobs, from believing in yourself, from maintaining friendships, from committing to most things. It starts fights. It. It carries a switchblade. It. It cannot be quieted by pharmaceuticals; in fact, it dares you to try that again. It does not cower under doctor’s orders. It hates the term self-care. It is the most persistent part of you. It is the one element of you that has not given up. It. It. It has locked your doors and windows, so forget trying to walk out. It reminds you (in case you have forgotten) how worthless you are. It. It expects nothing of you. It. It. It. It is immune to surgery and sermons. It may will never go away. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It.
Aimee Herman is a queer, nonbinary educator and writer. They are the author of two books of poetry and the novel “Everything Grows”. In addition, their work can be found in journals and anthologies such as BOMB, cream city review, and “Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics“. They currently host a monthly open mic in Boulder called Queer Art Organics. Aimee is extremely enamored with libraries, ukuleles, and the moon.
I. When God looks into the marble slab of me, She sees Herself. Chisel and hammer in hand, She is the One who shapes me, chipping away all that is not Her.
My insides have grown tired of this furtive distance. She’s so close, that’s why I can’t see Her. Closer to me than Myself.
My throbbing wound, oh my gentle perfection, dots on a grid. Lines between dots. Rippling, all glowing, rippling. A single jewel in a 350 degree mirror. Looking like a net. I’m caught, gasping for water as She pulls me from the ocean, into the blinding light. There is no such thing as “eventually.” It has already happened.
I strain the kingdom’s rock. I lift myself in two. My armor pales in comparison to my Self. I’m a pit-mine, stripped-down for change. I’m wheat seeds, ground to flower by the millstone of the stars. When it’s i that speaks, it’s really I that speaks. Say My Name. Ir-Rahman. My breath breathes through every living point. My particle wind, My immaculate gravity. My hammer made of kindness meets my chisel made of wine.
Feel yourself baptized, chisel’s kiss met drunken shrine.
II. When I lay down to sleep I pray my heart stays awake. Gabriel come and tear my heart from my chest, replace it with a holy vinyard, so all might drink and become quenched. Home is where the heat is hear the bells ring forest bliss, my God please hope my supple sin and consecrate my wand with light. My God! As who, what voice, where from, drenched in Sunday, stuffed with lion-blood, tackled to the brine with fishnet gravity. Give me gravity. Bring wine to orbit me. Bring thrones to bow before. Bring doorways arched filigree, gilded dew. My God! I remember when Dionysus swarmed. I remember the ivy on my head. Thyrsus high. I am a hole in Krishna’s flute that the Christ’s breath moves through. Listen to this music. I am a concert from the mouth of every milkmaid singing with the myriad chorus. My aura is drunk. My wake is oblivion. My tenderest melody bruising hearts. Make me a vine, make me a grape, make me a press, make me a cask, make me a cup, bring Yourself to my lips so Your taste might stay forever on mine. Pass me around this squalid wasteland of Puritans until reveling takes the night and lights it on fire. Let the howl of the Maenads, the Gopis – frolic and playful, gasping and wild-eyes – tear down the black curtain and shred it forever.
Connor Khalil Marvin is a poet, instructor, and ritual specialist based in Golden, Colorado. He currently works as a house witch at Ritualcravt. He teaches contemplative and spiritual practice through his own platform as well as through the Ritualcravt School. He is also a professional Talismaner as Merlin’s Workshop. He has represented Denver at the National Poetry Slam championship four times, and was the Mercury Café 2017 Grand Slam Champion. His first full-length poetry book is out on Albion-Andalus Press, available at most online book retailers. He tries to avoid opinions and welcomes the annihilation of belief by direct experience.
The delight I take in watching my hands age—endless. They are my grandmother’s ridged veins, branches I thought long gone to mill-dust. Slowly, dorsals become paper, a crinkling of tissue crepe marking birthdays. So, Doctor, tell me again how Restylane will plump them back to beauty. Make them youthful, dewy again. Erase my years, the dogged ones of clawing in & digging up, out, free. Doctor, explain once more how “hands don’t lie”— you think I don’t know that? These hands speak everything, flutter just truths. They say, These lines are wages earned, liver spots bonuses clocked, tendons popped with wisdom. In these hands are carried the entirety of me: my cells cupped by my mother, her mother, the whole trail-weary tribe from Oklahoma and Cherokee rose roads back. Doctor, you want to rewind these hands with yours? I handle my own unraveling, shaking arthritic thumbs and all.
Jessica Mehta is a multi-award-winning poet and author of the Oregon Book Award finalist collection “When We Talk of Stolen Sisters.” As a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, space, place, and ancestry in post-colonial “America” informs much of their work. You can learn more at www.thischerokeerose.com.
now so often twinkling between the walls of my home —————–moving and stopping abruptly, a dance and fall
when embodied i almost didn’t notice ——————how it changed the vibration in the air ——poetry moves the tide of emotion =======================================================-this, i noticed
===========–for my body was water —— adherent
but spirit spirit
is this other element without ground or liquid or oxygen or heat ——————spirit is but ether ether ———————is my best bet ———-as i let my ghost consider what moves through me
there are notes like cold rain, sleet in early spring ——————and campfires in late summer cool autumn mornings with golden aspen coins
——————and there is heartbreak, the thought of him leaving my father’s hand softening ———– the strands loose from her braided hair
something about flowers —–and how long they last
Ashley Howell Bunn (she/they) completed her MFA in poetry through Regis University and holds a MA in Literature from Northwestern University. Their work has previously appeared in The Colorado Sun, Twenty Bellows, patchwork litmag, Mulberry Literary, Tiny Spoon, Champagne Room Journal and others. She is an experienced yoga guide trained in a variety of styles. Their first chapbook, in coming light, was published in 2022 by Middle Creek Publishing. She leads somatic writing workshops and writes a monthly Yoga, Tarot, and Astrology column for Writual.They are a founding member of The Tejon Collective, an inclusive creative space in Denver, CO.
lethargic hope is limping in the bottom of my mind, like a worm is creeping on the floor. it never allows me to give up on everything. it leads me to dawn again and again.
I did not see the naked man on King Street. He was one of those “Nudes for God.” Instead, Jacob slides in like a snail on pink slime. wailing, as high-pitched as a gibbon.
He rubs his puckered eyes roughly. And his jelly-mouth ripples in the clock face. Five in the morning detaches itself from time. His kiss unties me though it smells of dead cologne.
I am only here so I can be here when he’s here. My secret life continues it existence in him. But he’s kin to a decomposed insect. I squeeze his innards into a likeness of myself.
Well-Spread
There are parts of me everywhere. Like curled up on a park bench. Or preaching the dead cult of sex. Or naked and looking for work.
I deserve breeze but reap the stillness. My gloomy fire begins as ashes. In the reading room of the public library, that’s my head opened wide at page 3.
Herman Melville spits in my ear. I follow a handsome man into a doctor’s office. I slink into a movie theater, drink out of an army boot. Snow or gay bar, the flakes prove inconclusive.
Andrej Bilovsky (he/him) is a gay poet and performance artist. Former editor of Masculine-Feminine and Kapesnik. His poetry can be found at the Quiver and Down In The Dirt.
south broadway press 